


A Reflection

by calmlikesurrender



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:31:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmlikesurrender/pseuds/calmlikesurrender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn's a wasteland, but so beautiful (or five times Liam made excuses for him and the one time he didn't).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Reflection

1.

            He’s a wasteland, but so beautiful.

            Hard mounds of pressure beneath his smooth, tanned flesh. Lax grip on the present, but with a smile that can shake fortresses.

Dead eyes.

            But Liam sees him like a shot of pure adrenaline and he doesn’t take a hit when Zayn offers because Zayn is enough.

            Sprawled out across the covers, naked except for his gaudy gold Rolex, dangling loose on his emaciated wrist.

            “’S fine,” Zayn mutters to Liam through cracked lips, letting his eyes drop shut as the poison slips into the delicate folds of the veins he has left, “Your loss.”

 

—

2.

            Liam holds Zayn’s wrist to his lips, needing-  _craving-_ something real.

            “What are you doing?” Zayn asks, slow and breathless.

            “Checking,” Liam says, kissing the clammy skin just along a rare green vein, “for a pulse.”

            (A reflection)

            As they find a lazy rhythm.

            And when he’s spent, he strokes Zayn through his, too, nuzzling into the skin of his neck, breathing him in. But it’s not the same.

            He was a copper-caramel once. Musky and brilliant. Now he’s burnt and bleeding, decaying flesh and after shave.

            Still Liam’s can’t get enough.

            And he’s terrified that he’ll be here forever, basking in the rotten core of him, letting the drugs consume every ounce.

            Just as they pull away, Zayn’s reaching into the nightstand drawer and tugging out a leather bag.

            “Zayn, don’t.”

            But it’s futile, he knows. He watches him find a vein, something pulsing and alive somehow on the tattooed canvas of his skin.

            When he injects, he closes his eyes and tugs on his bottom lip with his teeth. He rocks slowly back until he’s lying across Liam again. This time with a smile.

            And Liam can’t help but notice that for so long he had been the reason for that content. Now it takes more than Liam’s strong hands on his hips. Now it takes a syringe and shaky breath and silence.

—

3.

            There’s something about the stage, too, that brings Zayn back to life.

            He’ll be dead weight, practically comatose, until just before a show.

            Then he’s the same rambling idiot Liam couldn’t take his eyes off of from the beginning. He smiles and he slips his arm around Liam’s waist half way through Up All Night.

            He _laughs._

On stage like it’s all he needs.

            And Liam knows.  He knows.

            To Zayn there is no room for  _other._

He is an untamed beast. He took a dive from some celestial height, but he forgot (because he’s a rare shade of blameless) that he can’t swim.

            Except Liam never did.

            There’s the music and the ashy-white marble- the only substances he needs. And they expand around each other, within, throughout, like a supernova.

            With just enough force to push Liam away, but just enough gravity to remind him that he’ll never leave.

—

4.

            And the boys pull Liam aside one day, and Harry puts his hand on his shoulder.

            “You’ve got to talk to him” he says, “Zayn needs help.”

            And Liam nods and he agrees and he smiles because it’s what he has to do. He walks away with so much purpose, but as soon as he hits the next corner, he’s a sobbing mess.

            Seems to be happening a lot lately.

            He’ll just break down.

            Because don’t they know he wants to help? Needs to help?

            But the boy they all connected with so long ago, isn’t the same boy who lies beneath him every night, licking a prickly trail down his neck.

            No, he’s a stranger and he’s harsh and cruel and deceptive and clingy.

            But he’s Liam’s.

            So no.

            No, he will not talk to Zayn about anything. Because this is _theirs_. No one else’s. And when Zayn wants help, Liam will be there. But not a minute before.

            He won’t push.

            Because when you love someone, you don’t.

            Love is patience, not power.

—

5.

            He doesn’t even feel it anymore. It’s just habit.

            They kiss. Zayn asks for more.

            They undress.

            Liam makes a joke about his Rolex.

            They slide against each other, but it’s not sex.

            It’s not love either.

            They don’t fuck each other into the sheets. They don’t claw at raw skin. They don’t kiss and sigh and wait for fireworks. He slips into Zayn, slow, lazy thrusts, because they should.

            Because they’re in their twenties and twenty-somethings have sex.

            Except today it’s not enough.

            Today he’s angry.

            And he feels Zayn around him, this tight heat that used to leave him breathless, but it’s leeching. And he’s scared that it always was. That he imagined all of the  _before,_  and Zayn was always this twisted and evil and uncaring.

            So he groans, deep and guttural, and then he’s slamming into him and he can’t stop. He digs his nails into Zayn’s hip bones, and it feels so good.

            Not being there.

            It feels good to know that when they’re done, Zayn will have bruises.

            Blue and black and gray reminders that he was killing himself and killing Liam, too.

            Then he sees a bead of sweat slipping down Zayn’s chest. Then another, and another.

            And another until he realizes that his vision has gone blurry and it’s not sweat, but his own frustrated tears, sliding down Zayn’s skin.

            And he stills, suddenly flaccid, when he looks at his boyfriend’s face and sees no recollection. Zayn’s eyes slip shut slowly, and his breathing slows to a gentle rhythm as unconsciousness takes over.

            He just watches him.

            Because what else is there to do?

            He pushes his hair up away from his forehead and kisses him gently there before pulling away.

            “I love you,” he says to no one and it sounds like a lie.

            Because he  _used_  to love someone.

            Or at least, he thinks he did.

            Before the fame turned into money and money turned into loneliness and loneliness turned into an itch only that fuzzy-white demon could scratch.

—

6.

            It’s no surprise when the world comes up to catch him.

            He’s Zayn and he’s flawless and he’s dark and he’s loved. So just before he climbs into the cab of some van, ready to be swept away to “a facility where he can get the help he requires”, he pulls Liam close.

            Closer than he had with the others.

            “I’m sorry,” he says, into his ear.

            Liam just nods. Mainly because he knows.

            Partially because he doesn’t believe a word.

            “I’ll be back,” Zayn says.

            “I’ll be waiting.”

            He kisses him, once. On the cheek.

            “I love you,” Zayn says.

            And for a minute, he almost says it back.

            But then he looks into those brown eyes, rimmed with long lashes, and he sees something vile under the lens. He can’t say it back. Not like this.

            Not when he’s speaking to a ghost, a shell of the person he seeped into, all hollow and wanting and easy.

            He pulls away, giving Zayn a gentle push toward the open car door.

            “I know.”


End file.
